Please pinch me. Grab a little chunk of flesh on my forearm and pinch it REALLY HARD. Do what ever you can to wake me from this horrible nightmare? Tell me that it is all a dream and that “no one actually shot JR”.

What am I referring to? Well, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, some brilliant bureaucrat in Pittsburgh (Joseph Kirk, executive director of the Mon Valley Progress Council) wants to submit the I-80 tolling plan to the Federal Highway Administration ONE MORE TIME . . . for good measure . . . read the full story HERE.

Stupid politicians in Harrisburg are still struggling with the hole that was left in the budget when the I-80 tolling project was turned down last month [READ HERE], and they are considering EVERYTHING that could possibly raise money. According to the article, “Legislators are suggesting other solutions: tolling Interstate 79 or Interstate 95, legalizing video gambling machines, enabling private companies to lease highways and charge tolls, contracting out highway maintenance, or raising the wholesale gas tax.”

I’m sorry, but has anyone considered the possibility of CUTTING SPENDING as a way to make ends meet? NOOOOOOOOOOO. Instead, let’s just keep putting through a proposal to toll I-80 and THEN continue to write the money into the budget (as though it is already approved). All this so that we can move along in an effort to quickly pass a useless, garbage budget before things ramp up for the November election.

In the words of Mike Kelly (candidate for Congress), “I’m sorry if I come off as ANGRY, but I am ANGRY”. State legislators need to sit their rear ends down in Harrisburg and start cutting meat out of this budget and it better start soon. I’m not talking any whimpy thin sliced pork chops kind of meat . . . I’m talkin’ big old thick porterhouse steaks kinds of meat . . . if you know what I mean.

Give it up already. I-80 is NOT an option. Find some other dead horse to beat for a while.

A more open question is whether the Specters and Crists of the political world would be better off remaining in the Republican Party and effecting moderation from within. As one who’s long implored the GOP to reopen the tent and appeal more to centrist voters (and recently became so frustrated by its refusal to do so that I myself became an independent), part of me wishes Specter had stuck around.

The GOP nominates the most moderate Republican candidate for President in the history of the Republican Party , and he was so far to the right for Michael Smerconish that he voted for, literally, the most liberal Democrat politician in the American Presidency.

We can all be for Big Republican tents, but c’mon. Barack Obama is no moderate, and definately not a Republican moderate.

The Nutter administration is moving to draft legislation abolishing the Clerk of Quarter Sessions office, an obscure court agency dating back to 1682 with a $5 million budget, a history of poor performance – and a vacancy at the top.

“The idea that we somehow need to cling to a historical office is no longer in the best interests of the city,” said Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison, Nutter’s top aide for public safety issues.

He told City Council on Tuesday that the legislation would be completed within the next two weeks. Council can then vote to abolish the office.

Vivian T. Miller, the last person elected to the citywide office, resigned her $117,991-a-year position on March 31 following intense criticism of both her staff and the very need for her agency.

Somehow the 110 employees in the office managed to screw up the collection of $5 Billion (with a B) in bail money. Helpfully, they retained no records of who owed what so the city, perpetually facing a deficit, has no real way to collect it.

“This is one of these anachronisms that need to go away,” he said.

City Council members quizzed Gillison and Pamela Pryor Dembe, the president judge of Common Pleas Court, about the future of the office’s workers. Gillison and Dembe assured them that workers would not lose their jobs.

City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. said he would not vote for the legislation unless it included specific language protecting the current workers.

“Trust is fine, but why not put it in writing?” Jones said.

These workers should be marched down a plank 16th century style and into the Delaware.

So yeah, not shrinking government. Just people terrible people in other offices.

SALUTE THE FLYERS ON THURSDAY AT 1 PM
04/28/2010 – 04/30/2010
The Battleship [New Jersey] will salute the Philadelphia Flyers as former Flyer Bob “The Hound” Kelly will shoot the 5-inch gun at 1 pm on Thursday, April 29 to begin the Flyers second round charge through the NHL Playoffs! Guests touring the ship can get a free Flyers t-shirt and meet “The Hound.”

In other news,

Upon hearing of the … shoot, [Joe] Hoeffel told Capitolwire: “These right-wingers have trouble talking straight, so I hope for safety’s sake, they can shoot straight.”

Hmmm… well the Hound was a left-winger, actually, but I think we can all agree that events like this certainly reflect the coarseness of hockey fandom these days. I mean, obviously these clods think it is fun but in all seriousness, it just reflects their lack of respect for opposing teams.

When the Incas had a crop failure, they would take somebody up on a hill and they would execute them. This process is the same — except it has a little less dignity. I’m sure the language was cleaner in the Inca process.

And the idea that somehow this is all Goldman Sachs — what you had in the Goldman Sachs deal was sharks trying to outsmart other sharks. These were not securities that were sold on the street to individuals, you and me. . . .

This is absurd. The Congress is as culpable as is Wall Street, and this whole exercise is a way to imply that it’s all the big bad bankers in Wall Street and it was not the Congress, which is hugely responsible for the entire collapse.

Most abortions at 22 weeks simply involve the induction of the birth which normally results in the death of a young foetus.

It is considered legal and acceptable to induce labor and then allow the weak and small child to die, not attempting to sustain his or her life, with the justification being that he or she was “not viable”, so that means he or she had no worth.

Unfortunately for the abortionists, some 22 week unborn children are more viable than others:

A baby boy abandoned by doctors to die after a botched abortion was found alive nearly a day later.

The 22-week infant died one day later in intensive care at a hospital in the mother’s home town of Rossano in southern Italy.

The mother, pregnant for the first time, had opted for an abortion after prenatal scans suggested that her baby was disabled.

However, the infant survived the procedure, carried out on Saturday in the Rossano Calabro hospital, and was left by doctors to die.

He was discovered alive the following day – some 20 hours after the operation – by Father Antonio Martello, the hospital chaplain, who had gone to pray beside his body.

He found that the baby, wrapped in a sheet with his umbilical cord still attached, was moving and breathing.

The priest raised the alarm and doctors immediately arranged for the infant to be taken to a specialist neo-natal unit at the neighbouring Cosenza hospital, where he died on Monday morning.

Interesting that the news article refers to this child as a “baby boy”. What’s the difference between a “baby boy” an a “born unviable fetus”? Nothing but semantics. They are both the same human being who is put to death for the crime of being inconvenient.

In 2005 a baby boy in Manchester was born alive at 24 weeks after surviving three attempts to abort him. He is now a five-year-old schoolboy.

How long are we going to let this continue? How long are we going to keep pretending that unborn children are not really alive? How long are we going to deny science, common sense, and basic human decency?

Unbelievable! The Pittsburgh Penguins (4th seed) are the highest remaining seed in the Eastern Conference after the three division leaders, the Washington Capitals (1st seed), New Jersey Devils (2nd seed) and Buffalo Sabres (3rd seed) all were defeated in the first round of the playoffs!

The Penguins are now guaranteed home ice advantage if they advance to the Eastern Conference Finals, but no matter which Western Conference team advances to the Stanley Cup Final will have home ice due to the lowest remaining seed in the West, the Detroit Red Wings (102 points), having a better record on the season than the highest remaining seed in the East, the Penguins (101 points).

The Philadelphia Flyers will not have home ice against the Boston Bruins, but it didn’t matter that much against the Devils!

The NHL has already announced the times for the Round 2 match-ups! Here are the dates and times for the Eastern Conference Semifinals:

First, the event is a wonderful opportunity for the candidates that are facing challengers in the Primary (only three weeks away) to meet, mix, and mingle with the people of Mercer County. I am completely supportive of that concept, and I have attended more than my share of similar events in the past six weeks. I will be attending this event (as I have all of the others in the area) to document who is there and what they have to say. I do this to provide information to the voters of the area so that they are well informed when they go to the polls on May 18th. I also spend the time and effort in covering these events because NO ONE ELSE IN THE PRESS WILL. I write about all of the political activities in the area because we need to STIMILATE INTEREST in this election in order to generate REAL CHANGE in November.

Unfortunately, there are some that believe that this particular Meet and Greet may be hijacked by incumbent politicians in an effort to promote themselves (rather than the candidates that are struggling to win their respective Primaries). The two-hour event should be focused candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor, and Congress (3rd and 4th Districts). IT SHOULD NOT be spent on incumbents that have no opponents in the Primary or (in some cases) no opponents in the General Election.

If Senator Bob Robbins, Representative Michele Brooks, and Representative Dick Stevenson show up with the intention of upstaging the Primary candidates, they should be booted off the stage. (even better, they should be booted OUT OF OFFICE, but I digress)

I urge all of you to attend the event tomorrow night in order to educate yourself about the candidates that are competing in the Primary. I also urge you to watch carefully at “who” is politicking and “who” is there to simply support the conservative candidates that are seeking a place on the ballot in the fall.

I am committed to informing the people of Mercer County, the voters of northwest Pennsyvania, and the taxpayers of Pennsylvania of ALL political activities . . . good and bad. I present information in this forum in an effort to educate and stimulate. You are free to form your own opinion, but I think it is important that you have access to ALL of the details.

A Side Note:

I have a funny feeling that some attempt will be made to prevent me from attending this event. I intend on walking in and documenting the activities just as I have done since mid-March. I “dare them” to attempt to stop me.